Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[pipelineaudio]

Way to cover the bases! That's one in the coffin, bolted shut and cremated.

I still haven't seen a burst of infections in your part of the world. Daily increase is down to 3.5% over the past four days.

Sadly, it has to be said.

As Hawaii's senate pushes back against the Department of Health's extreme anti-testing policy, they are told NOT to base any decisions on the models of Hong Kong and Taiwan because "those two countries are racists against chinese people"

I have provided wikipedia links to the demographics of Taiwan that senate can pull up real quick when they get hammered with that again today...

and in the case of Hong Kong, I don't think there is any nice way for the senate to refute that one that doesn't involve "Do you know which country the "country" of hong kong is a part of, "doctor"? "

 

[marting]

Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202031254X

Despite this, no countries or authorities consider airborne spread of COVID-19 in their regulations to prevent infections transmission indoors. It is therefore extremely important, that the national authorities acknowledge the reality that the virus spreads through air..

It's been an article of faith that aerosol transmission rarely occurs outside, perhaps, of aerosol generating medical procedures. They are coming around, kicking and screaming.

 

[The Atheist]

It's been an article of faith that aerosol transmission rarely occurs outside, perhaps, of aerosol generating medical procedures. They are coming around, kicking and screaming.

I don't think anyone's doubted it happens, so much as had no hard data on it, and I note the article itself only uses other disease transmissions, there still isn't.

Then, what to do about it? We already have a recommendation - in most places - that masks should be worn and that 2m separation be maintained, which is all that could be done anyway. You can't have 6m or 8m social distancing, because supermarkets alone couldn't cope with it.

There has to be a line between sensible precautions and supplying everyone wearing full hazmat suits, and I think the current 2m is about right. And mask wearing seems to be becoming universal anyway.

Interesting point on masks - almost everyone I see is wearing one, except for one glaring sector: white people.

We have a massive Asian and Indian population where I live, but there are plenty of white & Pasifika people, and almost every person I see without a mask is white, and it's rare to see a white person wearing one.

 

[Meadmaker]

linky?

https://thehill.com/policy/internat...opped-after-irregular-heart-beats-detected-in

(Link to article about Brazilian study of chloroquine)

 

[Ulf Nereng]

https://thehill.com/policy/internat...opped-after-irregular-heart-beats-detected-in

So what it now looks like to me: Giving patients normal doses like you do with malaria and Lupus patients doesn't help against covid-19, except that it may shorten the course of disease for people who have only mild symptoms. But those aren't likely to die anyway. And giving higher dosages could help patients who have severe symptoms (still unknown), but then you'll just give them heart problems instead.

 

[Planigale]

Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202031254X



It's been an article of faith that aerosol transmission rarely occurs outside, perhaps, of aerosol generating medical procedures. They are coming around, kicking and screaming.

This is an opinion piece, no new facts are given and it is by academics with a background in air quality, but not in infectious diseases.

 

[xjx388]

What's so different about Canada's population that it would scarcely register on that graph vs the USA which is practically going into the stratosphere?

The US population is 10 times bigger, give or take, than Canada. The US is more concentrated in urban centers and, indeed, those are the areas being hardest hit. It would be hard not to hit higher raw numbers than other smaller countries. We are going into "the stratosphere" because we have more people. But deaths per 1M in the US are at 71 according to worldmeter, right now; that's not "stratospheric" in the context of other countries who are seeing some staggering numbers. Consider Spain at 377 deaths per 1M. Italy, 338. UK, 167. By that measure, the US is doing OK, Canada even better.

The US could have done better and Canada responded better than we did. No argument from me on that count. But looking at one graph and freaking out about "stratospheric" numbers is misleading.

 

[quadraginta]

What's so different about Canada's population that it would scarcely register on that graph vs the USA which is practically going into the stratosphere?

Canucks are naturally more polite that USians. The virus respects that, and cuts them some slack.

 

[Dr.Sid]

I don't think anyone's doubted it happens, so much as had no hard data on it, and I note the article itself only uses other disease transmissions, there still isn't.

Then, what to do about it? We already have a recommendation - in most places - that masks should be worn and that 2m separation be maintained, which is all that could be done anyway. You can't have 6m or 8m social distancing, because supermarkets alone couldn't cope with it.

There has to be a line between sensible precautions and supplying everyone wearing full hazmat suits, and I think the current 2m is about right. And mask wearing seems to be becoming universal anyway.

Interesting point on masks - almost everyone I see is wearing one, except for one glaring sector: white people.

We have a massive Asian and Indian population where I live, but there are plenty of white & Pasifika people, and almost every person I see without a mask is white, and it's rare to see a white person wearing one.

Masks masks masks. Those which prevent your stuff going out. Mandatory everywhere. It might just as well work for us (Czech Republic). It might also be something else (TBC vaccine, atheism, who knows), but something clearly is working.

2m distancing is fine on the street. Impossible inside shop. You can distance yourself from people, but not from air they exhaled. And it all lands on surfaces, which in shops means goods.

 

[EHocking]

Be interesting to see if we see a drop in deaths from pollution in cities like London,

There are many more cities in the world with much worse particulate pollution than London.
It doesn’t even figure in the top 500.
There are a number of non-Chinese cities to choose from if the Chinese COVID numbers are regarded as questionable.

 

[Elagabalus]

The US population is 10 times bigger, give or take, than Canada. The US is more concentrated in urban centers and, indeed, those are the areas being hardest hit. It would be hard not to hit higher raw numbers than other smaller countries. We are going into "the stratosphere" because we have more people. But deaths per 1M in the US are at 71 according to worldmeter, right now; that's not "stratospheric" in the context of other countries who are seeing some staggering numbers. Consider Spain at 377 deaths per 1M. Italy, 338. UK, 167. By that measure, the US is doing OK, Canada even better.

The US could have done better and Canada responded better than we did. No argument from me on that count. But looking at one graph and freaking out about "stratospheric" numbers is misleading.

Yes, and on that note, looking back over the thread, I would say that the two extreme positions i.e."no worse than the flu" and "holy ****** It's all over people!" have been pretty much "nailed". I would like to see a few more "in-between" options.

 

[Samson]

The US population is 10 times bigger, give or take, than Canada. The US is more concentrated in urban centers and, indeed, those are the areas being hardest hit. It would be hard not to hit higher raw numbers than other smaller countries. We are going into "the stratosphere" because we have more people. But deaths per 1M in the US are at 71 according to worldmeter, right now; that's not "stratospheric" in the context of other countries who are seeing some staggering numbers. Consider Spain at 377 deaths per 1M. Italy, 338. UK, 167. By that measure, the US is doing OK, Canada even better.

The US could have done better and Canada responded better than we did. No argument from me on that count. But looking at one graph and freaking out about "stratospheric" numbers is misleading.

It is beyond belief that even the BBC's would headline absolute numbers in the USA.
Anyone can go to worldometer and sort by cases per million and deaths per million and talk some sense.
Clicking on USA you can then sort states similarly and see that New York State is currently the most dangerous region in the world.

 

[angrysoba]

Twenty new deaths recorded in Japan. A few days ago it was on 99, now 143.

https://covid19japan.com/

 

[Meadmaker]

As expected, the Michigan new case count went up from yesterday, Easter. However, they are down, significantly, from last week.

Massachusetts is surging, though. It passed Michigan in total case count. Pennsylvania also is gaining a lot of ground on us.

Overall, it looks like US cases will be slightly lower than last week.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Twenty new deaths recorded in Japan. A few days ago it was on 99, now 143.

https://covid19japan.com/

3 days over 10% grow, but today was better. The progress in Japan is very strange indeed.

 

[EHocking]

Most of which are attributed to people arriving from other places (same source, WaPo).

As I read it, much the same has been happening in Hong Kong, Australia, and Singapore (although in Singapore there’s a danger of difficult to control outbreaks in the dormitories of migrant laborers).

Important experiences to inform decisions JB Pritzker will have to make in the coming days and months.

It is early days yet, of course.
But China may well be working on the Hammer and Dance principle and this is what we are now seeing.

My previous post still stands.
Will the Chinese easing of restrictions be sufficient to kick start their local economies without endangering their population?

Regardless, China's economy must be hurting enough for them to lift travel restrictions with 55,000 "escaping" Wuhan by train on the very first day.
Many restrictions still apply, but workers are being given priority to travel to work by the looks of things.

Also they seem to be letting tourists to leave as they open their airport and a number of Chinese medical workers who were brought in at the start of the outbreak are also leaving.

Whether China has learned its lesson regarding covering up infection numbers after today and report any resurgence of infections is yet to be seen.

 

[marting]

U of W has updated their models and are now projecting somewhat higher deaths largely from Mass and NY's data.

At the national level, projected cumulative COVID-19 deaths could reach 68,841 (estimate range of 30,188 to 175,965) across states during the epidemic’s first wave. Today’s release is somewhat higher than the average US predictions for cumulative COVID-19 deaths published on April 10 (61,545, with an estimate range of 26,487 to 155,315), though the uncertainty intervals overlap considerably. This change is at least partially driven by higher cumulative estimates for Massachusetts and New York, reflecting the latest COVID-19 death data that are publicly available.

http://www.healthdata.org/covid/updates

Note that this is for the first wave, not all of 2020.

 

[Dr.Sid]

It is early days yet, of course.
But China may well be working on the Hammer and Dance principle and this is what we are now seeing.

My previous post still stands.
Will the Chinese easing of restrictions be sufficient to kick start their local economies without endangering their population?

We will never know. Chinese number might have been suspicious in the past. But now it's clear they are manipulated. Basically 0 new cases in the whole China is simply impossible. Hammer and dance should look like South Korea.

 

[Meadmaker]

Nice try, but you made it very clear that you believed the outcomes you were painting a picture of were going to come to pass regardless of the "sandbags."

I've got a question for you.

I've been very concerned reading the last two days of several meat packing plants closing down, especially the Smithfield plant in South Dakota.


These places are not being closed by government decree, because they are essential work. They aren't being closed for lack of demand. In fact, they can't keep up with the demand. They aren't being closed for lack of supply. In fact, there is great concern that farmers will have no place to take animals to be turned into sausage with these plants closed down.

The only thing that is causing these plants to close is a worker shortage, because so many of them are sick. 300 Covid-19 cases at the Smithfield plant, which is 40% of the cases in South Dakota. (I don't know how many deaths.) Many meat packing facilities across the country have closed in the last few days, all because of sick workers.

Do you ever remember anything like that happening before, ever? What makes this year special?

My theory is that Covid-19 at least as contagious and more deadly than the flu.

 

[Bob001]

.....
My theory is that Covid-19 at least as contagious and more deadly than the flu.

Definitely more deadly, probably more contagious.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/coronavirus-flu-healthcare-symptoms/

And conditions in meatpacking plants are among the worst of any workplace. It's no surprise that people get sick.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meat-and-poultry-work-is-dangerous-but-not-all-injuries-counted/